Romanian man caught installing card skimming device at ATM

Police said the arrested Romanian national, identified as Lupoi Emil, was wearing a cap to hide his face from the CCTVs inside the YES bank ATM kiosk.

A 40-year-old Romanian national was nabbed red-handed while installing card skimming device and duplicate keypad in an ATM machine in south Delhi’s Saidulajab on Mehrauli-Badarpur Road, the police said .

Romanian man caught installing (Getty Images/iStockphoto)

Police said the arrested Romanian national, identified as Lupoi Emil, was wearing a cap to hide his face from the CCTVs inside the YES bank ATM kiosk. One ATM card skimmer, two duplicate ATM keypads used for copying PIN numbers, five cloned plastic cards, a mobile phone and ₹18,220 in cash was recovered from Emil’s possession. Police are looking for Emil’s associate, who also belongs to Romania.

YES bank was not available for a comment. An email sent to the Romanian embassy remained unanswered .

Wednesday’s arrest was the third instance of a Romanian citizen being nabbed for ATM skimming fraud in the national capital in less than two months. Emil has been booked on charges of attempted cheating, fraud, mischief and theft after being nabbed inside the ATM on Wednesday.

DCP Kumar said that Emil’s arrest came following enquiry into various complaints that the police had been receiving regarding unauthorised withdrawal of money from ATMs across the city through cloned cards. The cyber cell team analysed CCTV footage of suspected ATM booths and began keeping a watch on them.

On Wednesday, the team members saw a man entering a YES bank ATM kiosk wearing a cap and found him tampering with the machine

During interrogation, a cyber cell officer said, Emil said that the data skimmer is installed in the mouth of the ATM machine where the card is inserted to clone debit card details. The duplicate keypad is placed on the original and is used to steal PIN numbers. “The stolen data is then replicated on gift cards having metallic stripe using a software and card cloning device. The cloned cards are then used to withdraw money. We are interrogating Emil to know the source of the five cloned cards that we seized,” said the officer. During interrogation, Emil told police that he used to visit India for making money by cloning ATM cards to support his family’s luxurious lifestyle.